Modern science demands cooperation among various sectors, including universities, research institutes, and corporations. Without transparency about the sources of our funding and clarity about our motivations, scientific objectivity may suffer. Scientists must owe their primary duty to science itself, and not to those funding their studies.

Following the brutal murder of Avijit Roy by Islamic extremists in Bangladesh, our own Michael De Dora (a friend and admirer of Roy's) made the media rounds over the weekend to discuss Roy, his work, and the larger meaning of this tragedy. He spoke twice on CNN (here and here), with deeper coverage from CNN's Ray Sanchez. Roy lived in the Atlanta area of Georgia, and Michael spoke to Georgia pubic radio about him, as well as Buffalo-area WGRZ television, and a lengthy panel discussion on BBC Radio's World Have Your Say. I'm sure there's some I'm missing.

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Yesterday was a bad one. As most people on the Internet were rightfully energized by the passage of net neutrality and less-rightfully-so about llamas and dresses, we at CFI lost a close ally to violence.Dr. Avijit Roy, a Bangladeshi-American writer who has worked closely with us on the fight for free expression, particularly in the case of the persecuted Bangladesh bloggers in 2013, was murdered by machete and/or cleaver-wielding attackers yesterday, as he left a book fair in Dhaka with his wife Rafida Ahmed Bonna, who was also badly injured and remains hospitalized.